Small Space. Big Life.

Worth the Space: the Brown Sugar Cookbook

Dear Readers: every Friday I publish Worth the Space, something that is worth the space it takes up, and therefore makes the cut in our small house. Have something you think is worth the space? Let me know!

I love cookbooks.

I love the classics (Joy of Cooking). I love the big, shiny, modern glossies with unbelievable food photography from far-off places where it’s hard to tell whether or not you’re reading a cookbook or a travel book. I love little word-processed books bound at Kinko’s and sold as fundraisers for local granges and churches. I love old cookbooks, which nearly never give standardized measurements, relying instead on the skewed belief that a “handful” or a “pinch” is the same from person to person. I especially treasure the three family cookbooks I possess, filled with recipes from my people.

But given the size of our house, I have too many cookbooks. They no longer fit on the three bookshelves allotted for cookbook storage, and are overflowing onto a fourth. It’s clear some editing is overdue.

But there are several cookbooks I have that are worth the space they take up, and these are not going to be subject to the cookbook edit. In fact, I love one of them so much that it might qualify as a “desert island” cookbook (you know, one you’d take with you if you were relocating to a desert island or maybe another country, where you couldn’t take all of your stuff, especially heavy stuff like books). In the case of this book it’d be a dessert island, because it’s a dessert book. And boy howdy, it’s a good one:

It’s amazing. I’ve had it for two months, and have made six recipes out of it so far. This doesn’t sound like much until you realize that 1. We don’t eat dessert often and 2. I’ve made each of these recipes at least twice, which adds up to a lot more dessert than is normal here at HouseMojo. I’m unrepentant about this, as it turns out. These desserts are good.

This book also contains my new banana bread recipe. I’m telling you, it blows every other banana bread I’ve ever had out of the water. It’s amazing.

I don’t even like banana bread all that much. Now I look forward to eating it.

Any book that can make banana bread worth the space in my stomach and on my hips is definitely worth the space it takes up on the bookshelf.

P.S. Neither the author of this book or its publishers knows anything about me. It’s just a completely awesome book.